Revision

we outgrew the blueprint. 

what once held shape now splinters under breath

the old truths cough dust in our mouths

while we dig gardens from cracked pavement. 

there us no altar that doesn’t bleed

when kissed too long by history. 

the hymns were written by hands that feared

what we now cradle with care. 

we are not the heretics

only the ones who learned to plant fire

in the cold, 

to sing when silence was the rule. 

what is right must bend

or break

beneath the weight of becoming. 

rivers reroute

when the land forgets their name, 

and they still find the sea. 

we are that water now

cutting new cannons

where maps warned: DO NOT PASS

not disobedience, 

conflict, 

problematic, 

but breath, 

forward, 

the moment 

when the sun rises

where no one would look.

This poem was inspired by a history assignment in which I researched a Supreme Court case involving the Second Amendment and the legality of handgun ownership. While the court ruled it a constitutional right, the case made me reflect on how decisions of the past can have unintended and tragic consequences in the present. Change is not only inevitable, but also necessary. This poem expresses the urgency of adapting our beliefs and actions to the reality of now, rather than the past.